President Obama addresses the annual dinner of the Human Right Campaign in Washington DC. Photograph: Getty Images

Across the country, even as voters swept the first African-American into office, ballot initiatives were passed that stripped or restricted the rights of other Americans of their rights(Not quite ready for change, 5 November 2008)

Day one of the new era, we woke, a bit hung over from the champagne that flowed well into the night on American streets after Obama ascended to that glass-enclosed platform in Chicago and the new first family waved from the dais; the world seemed to have righted itself after eight years in the wilderness.

But we knew that while the world looked brighter, the colours keener, the future a surer path, the tasks before us were enormous. Among those harbingers of the road ahead was the abhorrent ballot measures passed across the country, the most famous of which – Proposition 8 – stripped California citizens of their right to live as their neighbours. I'm speaking, of course, of the anti-gay ballot measures that swept the states on the same night as Obama grasped the brass ring.

With the sadness that accompanied the propositions banning gay marriage and undermining the rights of gay families to adopt (as in Arkansas and Florida) there was much galvanizing anger. There was also hope, in that dark moment, in the gay community and among straight allies who believe that an American citizenry is, as Obama always promised, at its core, not one of red states and blue states, but the United States of America.

That hope was placed with the nascent Obama administration. It was a hope the new president would live up to the promises he made to the gay community during the campaign. With him, we hoped, all of us would enjoy the same rights and privileges in a country helmed by a man who had promised to end military discrimination and close the ignominious door on "don't ask, don't tell", to lobby to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, to finally, 10 years after Matthew Shepard died, sign a strong Hate Crimes Act into law.

But, one year along, the Obama Administration, wins, at best, a "C" grade on gay issues. Bogged down with the economy and wars, gay rights have been, once again, set aside for later.

As Richard Socarides, who worked under Bill Clinton as the president's liasion to the gay and lesbian community wrote in May in a Washington Post op-ed "I understand that the president has his hands full saving the economy. But across a broad spectrum of issues – including women's rights, stem cell research and relations with Cuba – the Obama administration has shown a willingness to exploit this change moment to bring about dramatic reform. So why not on gay rights? Where is our New Deal?"

That sentiment has been echoed from gay leader to gay leader. It didn't help that, in June, a Department of Justice memo surfaced that supported the Defense of Marriage Act. (The support turned out to be a Bush era holdover and standard DOJ practice, but that, unsurprisingly, didn't assuage the dismay.)

To be sure, there have been successes. Iowa's supreme court granted the right to same sex marriage back in April. Maine followed soon after – although Maine's ballot initiative to be decided in the election next week may jeopardize that victory.

We must stand against crimes that are meant not only to break bones but to break spirits. Not only to inflict harm, but to instill fear.... The rights afforded every citizen under our constitution mean nothing if we do not protect those rights, both from unjust laws and violent acts. And you understand how necessary this law continues to be.

But the timeline on "don't ask, don't tell" – which continues to allow gay men and lesbians to be expelled from the military – does not yet exist. And the Defense of Marriage Act still stands. And individual states continue their slog in the moral battle, between a youthful generation that believes, increasingly, in the right of gay men and lesbians and their families to live full and equal lives, and the forces that would try to codify laws that enforce a second-class citizenry before the younger generation fully takes over the ballot box. While Obama received a standing ovation at the Human Rights Campaign dinner early in October, there were those who thought that applause came too soon, and that the president had not lived up to promises.

In the year, and years to come, the only choice is to hope that Obama can live by his own words and live up to his promises with "fierce urgency." As he said at the Hate Crimes Act signing ceremony:

We have for centuries strived to live up to our founding ideal, of a nation where all are free and equal and able to pursue their own version of happiness. Through conflict and tumult, through the morass of hatred and prejudice, through periods of division and discord we have endured and grown stronger and fairer and freer. And at every turn, we've made progress not only by changing laws but by changing hearts, by our willingness to walk in another's shoes, by our capacity to love and accept even in the face of rage and bigotry.

Changing hearts, in this country, must come both from the streets and the White House.

To read the rest of the Cif America series looking back on Obama's 2008 election victory, click here